14,000 Screams Prove Beatles Are Still Loved (Detroit 1966)

 

14,000 Scream Prove Beatles Are Still Loved

By Lawrence Gustin

The Flint Journal (Michigan)

August 14, 1966

    Take 14,000 youngsters, give them flash cameras and bags of jelly beans, then pack them all into Olympia Stadium for two hours while the tension grows. Now, all together, kids, throw those jelly beans, flash those cameras, and scream your lungs out. If you can picture this, you get an idea of what happens at a performance of the Beatles. 

    More than 30,000 fans, most of them young girls with long straight hair, demonstrated Saturday during two shows that they still loved the long-haired Englishman. There was little evidence of any hostility stemming from Beatle John Lennon's well-publicized statement that they were more popular than Jesus. Just to make sure, the master of ceremonies told the crowd that Lennon felt his statement had been taken out of context, and that what he really meant was to say it's a very sad state of affairs that the Beatles seem more popular than Christianity. There were loud screams of approval, and signs were unfurled by the youngsters. They bore such catchy phrases as "I love you, John" and "I love you, Paul." One group displayed a large Union Jack. 

    At least one girl in the audience was well prepared. "I just know I'm going to faint, so I brought along my smelling salt," she said.

     The Beatles have toured this country four times; although their first visit was short, this was only the second visit to Detroit. However, there were about 2000 empty seats for the 2p.m. performance, but there were still about 14,000 young fans present, and a sellout crowd of more than 16,000 for the 7p.m. performance. And when you're selling seats for between $3.50 and $5.50, that's a great house by any standard. 

    Very few persons got close to the young entertainers between their arrival at Olympia at about noon and their departure by bus for Cleveland after the night show. They were closeted in a room at the end of a corridor, which was blocked by barricades, curtains, and at least a regiment of police. Only a few reporters and the young presidents of a few fan clubs were allowed through.

     For two hours during the matinee, the youngsters practiced their screams on lesser-known rock and roll performers. During the interim, the group's press agent Tony Morrow [sic] and manager Brian Epstein provided interviews. Morrow said the Beatles still definitely planned to go to Memphis, which strongly indicated through its mayor that it would appreciate being bypassed. 

    This was a reaction to John's statement about Christ, but the Beatles have apparently been successful in denying that any irreverence was meant. They landed in Boston, put on their first show in Chicago Friday, and were to hit these cities before returning to England on August 29: Cleveland, Washington, Philadelphia, Toronto, Boston, Memphis, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. 

    The police suddenly formed a line to the stage, and Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr ran to the stage. There was bedlam as the stadium lighted up in a burst of flash bulbs, giving the flickering impression of a silent movie. Jelly beans, hair brushes, photographs, dolls, and even records bounced onto the stage and onto the heads of police and photographers.  The four could be heard if you were within a few feet of the stage, but most of the youngsters could hear little but screams.

     For 30 minutes, the Beatles sang, smiled, sweated, wiggled their heads, and fancy stepped around the jelly beans. Then Paul announced that the next number would be their last, and this was greeted by a new shock wave of screams. The police were packed tightly around the stage as the Beatles let loose with "Long Tall Sally." It seemed that the show would end without a major incident, but not quite. Suddenly, a young blonde girl in orange slacks and sweater bounded over the wall, flashed between the startled police and made a dive at Ringo on the drummer's platform. She almost made it, but crashed into the amphitheater several feet from the drummer and went sprawling. She was hauled away fighting and screaming by four officers and taken outside. 

    A group of 20 Cleveland teenagers who won a trip to see the Beatles at each of their stops on the U.S. tour said the Detroit crowd was wilder than the Chicago crowd. One girl dislocated a knee crawling over a railing. There were 10 cases of hysteria. A girl passed out. Another passed out twice. A doctor said it was quieter than in 1964 when 45 girls fainted. Then there was this memory of a jaded veteran photographer who had griped earlier about the long wait. "They're good. They're really good," he shouted to anyone who would listen after the show. "I really like them."